Friday, September 21, 2007

Another technical foul...but for golf?

Every year my parents host a Badger weekend with all of their friends, and the main attraction is not for the game. Prior to and following after are the late nights out of drinking Long Islands, Swamp Waters, and Spotted Cows, along with dancing to decades of great music and hopefully witnessing my dad getting slapped in the face for the second year in a row. Naturally, I was pumped to attend!

All in all the game against The Citadels was surprisingly exciting with an end score of 31 to 21, Wisconsin. The rest of the weekend proceeded with lots of laughs and good times.

Sunday morning, September 16, as we were slowly delaying our departure time, my Mom and I were reading the Wisconsin State Journal, which was generously provided by the hotel free of charge, and my father was watching the pre-television talk to the Brewer's and Packer's games.

Suddenly, I come across a little article on the bottom of the Sports section titled: Steinhauer, Americans choking? Being the daughter of a quite good player of golf, I realized that Sherri Steinhauer is a Madison resident who is/was participating in the Solheim cup in Sweden. I read on.

Turns out that once again journalistic views emphasis what people shouldn't say on television and they "accidentally" do.... Sounds like a case of missed censorship?

Golf analyst Dottie Pepper, who was once part of the American team, seemed quite upset after her former teammates let slip a three point lead with only three holes left to play. After Steinhauer had missed a possible victory putt, Pepper, thinking the network had gone off the air, said "Chokin' freakin' dogs."

I found this situation very funny, but what else was amusing was, most of the article did not reflect on the competition as a whole. The only real emphasis was on what Pepper had said on networked television that should have been censored. This is a classic case about how media feels everyone loves a goof-up. Frankly, it's true.

1 comment:

Interesting how once again, the emphasis of a story was dramatized and sensationalized. The underlying theme: the competition that dayWhat will ppl remember? The "bad words" that Pepper had let "slip"?